Category Archives: politics

Vanessa Haydon Trump, the wife of President Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., filed for divorce on Thursday afternoon in a Manhattan court.

Ms. Trump, 40, is seeking an uncontested divorce to end her 12-year marriage with the president’s son. Mr. Trump, 40, the eldest of five children from President Trump’s three marriages, met his wife, a former model, when his father introduced them at a 2003 fashion show. They married in 2005 at Mar-a-Lago, the family’s club in Palm Beach, Fla. They have five children.

“After 12 years of marriage, we have decided to go our separate ways,” the couple said in a joint statement. “We will always have tremendous respect for each other and our families. We have five beautiful children together and they remain our top priority. We ask for your privacy during this time.”

The couple live in Midtown Manhattan during the week, and the family often spends weekends in the Catskills.

Mr. Trump and his brother Eric, 34, took over the management of the Trump Organization after their father was elected president. While his sister Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, moved to Washington and took senior jobs in the White House, Donald Trump Jr. chose to stay in New York after the election.

He has stayed in close contact with his father, often defending the Trump administration on Twitter and in interviews on Fox News, and he recently campaigned in Pennsylvania for the Republican candidate in a special election.

The White House special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is examining a June 2016 meeting Donald Trump Jr. had with Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton and the president’s role in providing a misleading response to The New York Times last summer for an article about the meeting.

Last month, Vanessa Trump and her mother were hospitalized as a precaution after opening an envelope containing a white powdery substance that was later determined to be cornstarch, police officials said. A Massachusetts man was charged with sending the threatening letter. “No one should ever have to deal with this kind of sickening behavior,” Donald Trump Jr. said on Twitter about the episode.

A onetime model with the Wilhelmina agency, Ms. Trump was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and once dated the actor Leonardo DiCaprio. At the time of their engagement, Mr. Trump accepted a ring from the Bailey Banks & Biddle jewelry store in Short Hills, N.J., in exchange for publicity, recreating his proposal in a New Jersey mall.

The two were married 10 months after Donald J. Trump married the former model Melania Knauss. In an interview last year with The Times, Donald Trump Jr. said a romantic evening with his wife included dinner at home (he likes to cook) and, perhaps, a movie. He tweeted about when his wife “took/dragged” him to see “Fifty Shades Darker.” (He didn’t love it.)

Using her Twitter account with the handle @MrsVanessaTrump, Ms. Trump frequently retweeted her husband’s posts pertaining to family life, many of which include photographs of their weekends in the Catskills. But her tweets about him appeared to stop in June 2017. The last tweet referring to her husband was a family portrait in which she wished the president a happy birthday.

Mr. Trump, who is active on Instagram, has posted mostly photos of him and his children in recent months. The last photograph with his wife was a photo of the family in February, when they were in Palm Beach celebrating a son’s birthday.

Former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort chose to avoid a guilty plea that would have forced him to concede to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Russian government’s possible interference on the President’s behalf in the 2016 elections. Thus, Manafort will go to trial to fight a bevy of charges that could get him a 300+ year prison sentence for illegal business dealings he had with pro-Russia foreign nationals in Ukraine.

Two separate trials await Manafort, with one scheduled to begin in Virginia in July and one set for September in Washington, D.C. If convicted on multiple bank fraud, conspiracy, and tax violations he’s facing he could be slammed with a maximum of 305 years by a Virginia court alone.

Then conspiracy and foreign lobbying violations could potentially give him an additional 20 years if found guilty in D.C. The defense will be faced with the task of disproving that Manafort hid earnings he made off of Ukrainian politicians (while working as a U.S. official) in shell companies and offshore accounts. He is accused of then using the money to fund a lavish lifestyle and purchase property.

Due to the nature of Manafort’s crimes and fear that he may have built an elaborate enough network of international connects to flee and go missing, he is being restricted to house arrest with a pair of GPS monitors and must request permission to leave his home for anything other than religious services, meetings with his attorneys, or medical emergencies. His bail has been set at an unsecured $10 million.

A former police officer in North Carolina was arrested and is facing assault charges after body camera video appears to show him beating a man for jaywalking. Footage showing then-officer Chris Hickman allegedly hitting and tasing Johnnie Jermaine Rush was leaked to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

Hickman’s arrest comes two months after he resigned from the Asheville Police Department and more than six months since he allegedly assaulted Rush in August. People there want to know why his arrest took so long when the incident is on tape, reports CBS News’ Mark Strassmann.

Asheville police say they received a use of force complaint and removed Hickman from patrol the day after the incident then launched an internal affairs investigation and informed the district attorney.

The DA’s office says it chose not to file charges in September so the investigation could continue. In December, police returned with three new videos related to officer Hickman’s use of force. Hickman resigned in January.

Community members this week grilled Asheville officials at a packed town hall meeting.

“I don’t understand why the DA didn’t bring charges,” said resident Al Whiteside. “We’re no longer in the 60s, were in the 2000s, 2018.”

Asheville Police Chief Tammy Hooper did not try to defend Hickman’s behavior and admitted her department is under scrutiny, even saying she’s “happy to resign if that’s going to solve the problems here.” But the meeting left some with more concerns.

“I don’t know if we got a lot of questions answered though about the time frame – when people knew and didn’t know,” another resident said.

Hickman left jail Thursday night on a reported $10,000 bond. CBS News was unable to reach Hickman or Rush. State investigators say they are working with the FBI to investigate Hickman’s behavior.

President Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, lost a heated battle in Central America this week. Orestes Fintiklis, the majority owner of what was once a Panamanian Trump International Hotel, won a huge legal battle on Monday, allowing him to remove the “Trump” name from the outside of his hotel.

Fintiklis was forced to make a brief public address when he arrived at the hotel, stating,“This is a purely commercial dispute that just spun out of control, and today this dispute has been settled by the judges and the authorities of this country.” He also sat down and played a baby grand piano that was on display in the hotel lobby. He proudly sang “Accordeon” as he played, which is a Greek song about the fight against fascism.

Although it appears as if Fintiklis has won the war, he has simply won one battle. The Trump Organization released a statement soon after their name was stripped from the building stating that the hotel initiated “the appointment of a temporary, third-party administrator to oversee the management of the property while the underlying dispute is being litigated.”

Fintiklis is also suing the Trump Organization for $15 million. He states that the company’s “utterly incompetent management of the hotel” has repelled hundreds of customers, leading to large financial loses.

Stormy Daniels is suing President Trump over a “hush” pact she says they drew up days before he was elected — but he refused to sign.

In the lawsuit, Stormy claims Trump did her dirty by not signing the agreement, which intended to keep her from talking about their alleged 2006 affair, and hurting his presidential campaign. The ex-porn star says she signed on the dotted line, as did Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen.

She says they used aliases — Trump was David Dennison and she was Peggy Peterson — in the contract to maintain confidentiality, but he still never signed it.

According to docs, obtained by TMZ, Cohen contacted the ex-porn star shortly after the Access Hollywood tape came out. Stormy says Trump and Cohen caught wind she might go public, and “aggressively sought to silence” her with the “hush agreement.”

As for her signing bonus, the now infamous $130k — Stormy says it was routed through an entity called Essential Consultants LLC. She says the company was created right before the election purely to hide the source of the payment. Cohen has claimed he used his own personal funds to pay her.

She’s suing to get a judge to rule the agreement is invalid … which, presumably, would clear the path for her to tell all about her alleged relationship with Trump.

Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman filed suit against the U.S. Olympic Committee for failing to take action to prevent former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University team doctor Larry Nassar from molesting hundreds of young athletes, according to news reports.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in California but announced Friday, accuses the committee of bungling its response to sexual abuse allegations against Nassar, who is now serving a long prison term for sex crimes.

“After all this time, they remain unwilling to conduct a full investigation, and without a solid understanding of how this happened, it is delusional to think sufficient changes can be implemented,” Raisman said in a statement, according to NBC. “I refuse to wait any longer for these organizations to do the right thing. It is my hope that the legal process will hold them accountable and enable the change that is so desperately needed.”

A USA Gymnastics trainer was sometimes present during treatment sessions where Nassar abused young athletes at the Karolyi Ranch, Raisman alleges in the suit, according to NBC News.

Raisman, in recent interviews, has accused the USOC of ignoring allegations against Nassar and threatening her not to tell how he molested her under the guise of treatment.

“I was told [by USA Gymnastics] to be quiet,” Raisman told ESPN in January. “And I think that when somebody in high power is telling you to be quiet, right when they realized you are abused, I think that that is a threat. USA Gymnastics just said, ‘We’re handling this. We got this. Like, stop asking us questions.’”

Raisman, a gold medalist who competed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, was among more than 100 women who alleged Nassar sexually abused them. He pleaded guilty to child pornography and sexual assault charges and was sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

The USOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The group’s CEO, Scott Blackmun, resigned on Wednesday after a cancer diagnosis.

“Under his leadership, USOC has focused nearly all its efforts on money and medals while the safety of our athletes has taken a back seat,” attorney John Manly, who represents many of Nassar’s victims, including Raisman, said in a statement.

Stacey Dash has officially filed paperwork to run for Congress in California’s 44th District, which is currently represented by Democrat Nanette Barragán. The district includes Compton, Watts, San Pedro and North Long Beach, and has long been represented by Democrats.

Actress Stacey Dash announced yesterday via Twitter that she has been receiving encouragement to run for public office. Dash tweeted Friday that “a number of people” suggested that she pursue a run for Congress. She asked her followers for their opinions on a potential run for office.

“A number of people online and off have suggested I run for political office. I wanted to see what my online community thinks of this idea as I mull the possibilities. Thoughts?” Dash tweeted. There was also a picture with the tweet that said: “paid for by the D2DC ‘Testing the Waters’ committee.”

The “Clueless” actress posted a follow-up tweet Saturday morning apparently pleased with the feedback and will consider running. “In response to numerous calls for me to run for office, I am considering a run for Congress. Would love to know what my fans and friends think,” she tweeted.

The actress currently lives in California. Dash was fired from her position as a contributor at Fox News after she cursed on-air while commenting on former President Obama’s attitude towards fighting terror.

“I didn’t feel any passion from him,” she said. “I feel like he could give a sh*t, excuse me, he could care less.”